Page 37 of Run, Run Rudolph (Fairy Godmothers and Other Fiascos #2)

~ Haden ~

“ I ’d rather break in,” Tamara told me as we waited outside Jannifer’s herbal shop in downtown Eagle Ridge.

We were in my idling truck, the heat blasting.

She’d offered to drive, but the thrill of riding to town in the snowdrift she called her convertible wasn’t my thing.

Plus, she had a bit of a reputation for bumping into things.

To be fair, after hearing about all the reindeer on the road story, I wasn’t sure I would have fared any better than she had.

In fact, since I tended to consider the speed limit a gentle suggestion, it likely would have been way worse.

When we got back to her farm later, I needed to remember to get all the snow out of the cab of her car in case a chinook melted it into her seats.

Being this close to the Rockies, warm air came over the mountain ranges from the Pacific Ocean, and we got “snow eater” weather, as the Blackfoot called it.

The temperature could go from minus twenty Celsius to twenty above in less than twenty-four hours.

That much melted snow in such a short time would certainly wreak havoc on her heated seats’ electrical system.

I also wanted to snag the mistletoe she kept hanging from her rearview mirror and put it to good use.

“We’re not breaking in,” I replied absently, swiping to delete all the useless notifications on my phone’s lock screen, one after another.

Fake emergencies. Invites to Christmas dinner.

Stupid questions that could be answered by a tiny bit of common sense or a quick online search.

Questions that had no real answer that were used to hook me into a lengthy conversation.

I didn’t get a thrill out of ghosting my clients or sending them canned responses, but there were only so many hours in a day, and if you nibbled on the line of questions, soon you were fighting off an avalanche. It was something I hadn’t learned nearly early enough in my career.

“I guess she’d know it was us if we broke down her door.” Tamara turned up the radio where Celine Dion was singing Happy Xmas (War is Over) and pulled out her own phone, making me feel like I was being rude for checking my own.

“Sorry,” I said. “Just scanning for any emergencies.” There seemed to be more than usual tonight.

“You get a lot of messages,” she noted, interrupting her own humming along to the song.

On her side of the truck, the streetlight was decorated with holly and coloured Christmas lights, giving her a rainbow-like glow.

It reminded me of the decorations the reindeer had been sporting earlier in the evening.

“Guess so.”

She scrolled through her messages and smiled.

“What?” Did she have someone sending her sweet nothings? Sending her memes that tickled her funny bone? I didn’t like the thought of that.

“My friends—my old roommates…” she said.

“Right. I met them when I helped you move.”

“They never change. They’re the best.”

I shifted, looking at her, putting my phone away. It was past midnight, an ungodly time to be replying to business messages. “How so?”

She shrugged. “Samantha is freaking out about her boyfriend getting more serious than she is. Gabby has a major crush on her live-in friend and brings him up every chance she gets. Josie is AWOL, like a healthy human being taking a tech break. And Char’s in the midst of an adventure.”

Tamara put her phone back in her parka pocket, chewing lightly on her bottom lip, and trying to hide a smile, as if the gals had all been dishing juicy gossip. I couldn’t help but wonder if some of it had been about me.

Tamara was staring at Jannifer’s store, a slight scowl forming. “Do you think this will even work? How are vitamins supposed to fix Rudolph’s sore hip?”

“I have no clue.”

“And seriously,” Tamara said with a disgusted shake of her head, pointing to the large store window. “That display does not say Christmas to me.”

I followed her gaze to the front of Jannifer’s Botanicals, amused by her annoyed attitude. “I like the garland.”

Tamara snorted.

“Christmas lights woven around big containers of protein powder doesn’t get you in the holiday mood?” I teased.

She gave a huff. Disgruntled Tamara was entirely the cutest of all the Tamaras I’d gotten to know over the years. It was like seeing an upset kitten. You wanted to take it seriously, but…it was cute. Really cute.

Angry Tamara was different though. She was fierce and absolutely nothing to laugh at. When she was angry, it made me angry, too. Partly because something had managed to bother her that much—which wasn’t an easy feat—and partly because she deserved… I don’t know. Everything good.

It brought out the steamroller, fist-making side of my personality where I just wanted to right her world’s wrongs for her.

I probably should have agreed to come here alone so she wouldn’t have to face Jannifer—the woman who’d caused her first break-up with Kade.

Seriously, what was wrong with my brother? If you loved a woman, you never let her go for anything in the world. You cherished her, you protected her, you fixed the small pieces in her life so she could be unburdened and shine in the way the universe had intended her to.

Kade had clearly never truly loved Tamara in that deep, everlasting way that she so rightly deserved. So, maybe it was actually a stroke of luck for Tamara that Jannifer had caught Kade’s wandering eye.

“This town never changes,” Tamara mused, taking in our surroundings and pulling me from my thoughts.

I glanced up the street, trying to see what she did. Eagle Ridge was still going hard on its mid-century, small-town prairie vibe. It had been so fully embraced that even some of the new buildings had false fronts extending above the squat buildings.

“False fronts never go out of style,” I stated.

“They make me think of a short woman wearing high heels.”

I burst out laughing. I’d never see these buildings the same, and would surely smile every time I drove down the street.

Tamara scooted forward in her seat, craning her neck to see the roofs lining Main Street. “Is Lady MacBeth out having a smoke?”

I scanned the street and found the insurance agency, a few doors down from where Lady MacBeth lived in the apartment above the shop.

During the day, if you were driving a pickup and were at the right angle, you could see the top of Lady MacBeth’s faded rooftop smoking couch lined up along the edge so she could watch the street below.

Rumour was she used to butcher geese to sell at the farmer’s market.

Someone had seen her walking around town with their blood on her hands, hence the nickname.

Truthfully, I’d heard it was actually paint from helping make sets for a community comedy night, but the nickname had stuck, and I wasn’t sure that anyone under the age of thirty knew her real name.

Tamara shivered. “Think she’s watching us?”

I put the heat on max and continued to peer upward, on the lookout for the small red glow of her cigarette.

“Too cold tonight.” I often saw her when I was running off to middle-of-the-night emergencies, since my clinic was within her range of view.

“Think she’s coming?”

“Jannifer?” I asked. “Or Lady MacBeth?”

“Jannifer.”

If she didn’t, I’d go bang on her door until she did.

Even though Tamara had won the finger-on-the-nose thing, Kade wouldn’t pick up my call, so I’d left the next attempt to Tamara.

It had taken a lot of cajoling and promises to get my brother to agree to call Jannifer.

It had made me want to grab her phone and threaten Kade with bodily harm if he didn’t help Tamara.

This woman was bringing out my protective side tonight, just like the time she’d foolishly swung out over the lagoon on a crappy, tattered old rope, belly-flopping the wind right out of her lungs.

As soon as I heard the loud gunshot smack of her body hitting the water, I’d known it wasn’t good.

Kade had doubled over laughing at her spectacular entry, believing Tamara was hamming it up.

I was already front crawling my way to Tamara before she’d even surfaced, praying she was still conscious.

She’d scared me that day, and that wasn’t something I often felt.

Not even when I was cornered by an ornery bull.

If it had been Kade in her shoes, tumbling toward the water, I’d have laughed on the shore until I lost my breath.

But Tamara…. There was a tightness in my chest just thinking about all the ways things could have gone so very wrong that day.

As for Kade, he better darn well show up. The man owed her for humiliating her in the grocery store last summer. For bringing her home, and then breaking up with her. And before that, for breaking up with her in the first place for someone he clearly hadn’t loved.

According to my calculations, Kade owed Tamara for pretty much the rest of his life.

I flexed my fingers on the steering wheel, trying to encourage my growing rage to ease off, while Tamara sagged deeper into her seat.

“I just want this done and over with so I can go to bed,” she mumbled sleepily.

I reached across the space between us and laid my hand over hers. “Your hands are cold.”

“From October to March. How are yours so warm?”

“Probably helps that I wasn’t driving around in a convertible tonight.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes danced, and a weak smile wavered. It was clear she was loving tonight’s adventures, despite the stress of it all. And who could blame her? It was pretty cool meeting these Christmas characters. Maybe tomorrow, we could meet up and take the time to let it all sink in.

I gestured to the store when she yawned again. “Do you want me to take over so you can get some sleep?”

“This isn’t your mess.”

“I’m used to late-night animal emergencies.”

And while there wasn’t anything more I could do for Rudolph, I was unfamiliar with healing a concussed Santa, and wasn’t sure if my handyman skills would extend to fixing a flying sleigh, I’d try, for Tamara’s sake.

Snowflakes gently floated down, melting on the truck’s warm hood.

“Think she’ll show?” Tamara asked, shifting so she was facing me better, her hand rolling under mine so we could clasp palm-to-palm.

“She’ll show.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“You need her help, and my brother will be there.”

“I don’t know. The vibes I’ve been getting off her since I returned home haven’t exactly been friendly.”

“She’ll love that you need her.”

“For a middle-of-the-night ‘herbal emergency?’ It’s stupid.”

“She likes Kade.”

“And she thinks I’m a barrier to getting him back? Great. That puts her in the unstable, mean girl category.” She shot me a wicked smile. “Think I could push Kade into her waiting arms?”

I really liked hearing that there were no hopeful ‘what ifs’ rolling around in her mind about another chance with Kade. In fact, I probably liked it too much.

Tamara sat forward, looking down the street for Jannifer’s approaching vehicle. No sign. “We should break in.”

Instinctively, I glanced upward, checking out the spot above the insurance agency for a glowing cigarette tip.

The streets were deserted, and it likely wouldn’t be long until the town cut the power to the lit-up decorations lining the street to save a bit of money.

Tamara yawned again, her eyes watering.

“Quit yawning,” I muttered through a huge yawn of my own. “You wouldn’t even know how to break in.”

“We could break the glass and just…” She let go of my hand and flung her arms out like she was trying to hug a big oak tree. “Grab everything.”

“You’d chicken out. You don’t even speed.”

“A speeding ticket doesn’t seem worth it, in terms of cost-benefit analysis. You gain a few extra seconds in your day, and risk paying several hundred dollars for it? Plus, getting pulled over would eat up all those extra minutes you’d gained, anyway.”

A knock on the truck’s passenger side window made her jump, and I wondered how I’d missed Kade’s truck rolling up. I put down the window, wishing he was on my side so Tamara wouldn’t have to deal with the bitter wind whipping into the cab.

“Hop in,” I told him, hitting the power locks button to release the doors.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Tamara’s not. Hop in.” I put her window up again.

Kade, grumbling under his breath, crawled into the back seat. He grabbed the sides of our front seats and scooted himself forward so he was practically between us. “So, the surprise is for me, right?”

“What fresh, new insanity are you talking about?” Tamara snapped, not even turning to look at him.

Yeah, she definitely didn’t want a second chance, unless it was to bury him up to his chin in the sand, sprinkle his hair with bird seed and let the magpies and crows go at him.

I think I’d want to help her, if it ever came to that.

Because seriously? How did I end up with such a self-centred brother?

Did he really believe this late-night shopping trip was related to the fake Christmas surprise in Tamara’s barn?

And that it was all for him? It made me feel guilty that our parents passed along all the brains in the family to me before he showed up.

“I mean, you know I think vitamins are the bomb.” He gestured to Jannifer’s store. “And here we are, even though you believe they’re an overpriced farce.”

“I don’t think they’re a farce. I just think?—”

“And tonight you need vitamins for an emergency .” He sat back, pleased with the belief he’d figured us out. “So, it must be a surprise for me.”

Tamara scrubbed her forehead, as if her knitted toque was itchy.

I glanced at Kade in the rearview mirror. Would he be able to tell that Tamara and I had kissed tonight? I felt a slow smile, curious how he’d react when he found out. It almost made me want to tell him. Almost.

I valued Tamara too much to subject her to his possible temper tantrum, though, because that kiss…

I wanted more. A lot more.

It had been like touching a live wire of bright white energy.

I’d felt something. Something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.